Courageous Noaker Law Firm Client Pushes for New York Child Protection Law
By Chris McKenna, Times Herald-Record [read full story]
Lex Filipowski was a 7-year-old altar boy at Holy Cross Church in Wawayanda, alone with the pastor as they changed into their robes before Mass, when the Rev. George Boxelaar pulled him close and began kissing him on the lips.
Thus began an abuse routine that escalated to groping and lasted for four years in the early 1970s, ending when Filipowski’s family changed churches. Filipowski first went public with Boxelaar’s molestation of him in a Times Herald-Record story in 2002, prompting at least 25 other people to come forward with reports of being sexually abused by the same priest when they were young boys. By that time, Boxelaar had been removed from the priesthood and had returned to his native Holland, where he died at age 81 in 1990.
Learn more about Rev. George Boxelaar in our investigative report.